HIGHWAYS’ NEW SHOES 2025 FEB 28 & MAR 01, 2025, 8:00 PM
Highways, 1651 18th St, Santa Monica, CA 90404, USA
Imagine a space where the human body becomes a kind of hyper-articulate language—each movement a syllable in some unknowable yet deeply familiar dialect, speaking directly to the viewer’s nervous system. Now imagine seven such voices, each distinct, conversing over two weeks of relentless experimentation and unflinching honesty. This is NEW SHOES 2025, Highways Performance Space’s annual descent into the raw, intricate machinery of contemporary dance. Created & Curated by Highways' Artistic Director, Patrick Kennelly.
In WEEK 1, Gia Bella & Casey Shea’s Cabin of Pleasure pries open the strange and intimate terrain where desire meets imagination, while Caitlin Javech / T O R R E N T’s Drive unpacks the psychic costs of ambition, exposing the sinews of what drives us forward. Melissa Younker’s Elytra, a mesmerizing solo within a synthetic exoskeleton, offers a viscerally tactile meditation on metamorphosis, where transformation feels both inevitable and claustrophobic.